CITY OF BRENHAM FEATURED IN CHRISTIAN BASEBALL MOVIE “THE HILL”

Story submitted to KWHI Sports by Tara Dreyer

BRENHAM, Texas — Rickey Hill still remembers stepping foot on Leroy Dreyer Field in Brenham, Texas for the first time. It is a memory forever placed in his heart because of a life changing experience that occurred on that field that doctors once thought would be impossible.

A movie has now been made on Hill’s incredible life, where he overcame the unthinkable through faith, family, and baseball. “The Hill,” set to be released in theaters nationwide on Friday, Aug. 25, features a fictional Brenham, Texas and Leroy Dreyer Field through parts of its storyline.

The movie, filmed in Augusta, Georgia at the end of 2021, features stars Colin Ford as Rickey Hill, Dennis Quaid as Hill’s father, Joelle Carter as Rickey’s mom, Scott Glenn as Red Murff, Randy Houser as Rickey’s boss, and many more talented actors and actresses.

The storyline of “The Hill” starts with his early medical diagnosis in which doctor’s exclaimed he’d most likely never be able to walk and that playing athletics would be close to impossible. It then builds up to a true-story moment that took place at a Montreal Expos professional baseball tryout camp held on the Blinn College-Brenham Campus in 1975.

“The tryout camps were in Brenham and I wanted to honor Murff with the way our story was, the man that he was, and the way he treated me afterwards was presented in the film,” Hill said. “I never got to talk to him until his later years when he told me I was the best hitter at the camp.”

Hill, who served as an executive producer in the movie, ensured that Brenham would be part of the film.

After overcoming the many obstacles of his medical condition and becoming a star high school baseball player, it became the place where God’s plan for him to be a professional baseball player was truly revealed.

“I knew it was God’s calling for me to play baseball because he gave me the talent to hit,” Hill said. “As far as faith is concerned, I spent my whole life in church in different towns since my dad preached at seven different churches. Then in high school I started breaking home run records and I knew that it was God’s calling for me to minister on the baseball field.”

Following an ankle injury that required surgery and caused baseball coaches and professionals to lose interest, Hill was given one last shot to play baseball when he received an invitation to the prestigious camp from college baseball hall of famer Leroy Dreyer. The camp was designed to showcase the best baseball talent in the state to collegiate baseball coaches and professional baseball scouts and executives in attendance. And perhaps, nobody desired the attention of anyone more than from professional baseball scouting legend, Red Murff, who had discovered and signed pitching phenomenon Nolan Ryan.

“I had never been to Brenham before and it was the first time I had ever seen an AstroTurf baseball infield,” Hill said. “I knew a lot of professional scouts would be there and they had a finale game at night that the whole town comes out and watches.”

Hill was initially cut from the camp, but went directly to Murff and convinced him to let him play in the finale game. He went on to grab the attention of everyone in the stadium, hitting 11-for-11 that night, resulting in Murff signing him to the professional baseball contract that he dreamed of his entire life. Hill spent five years in the minor leagues, undergoing three spine surgeries to keep playing until he was physically no longer able to. He now looks back on the game in Brenham and refers to it as “the special night.”

“That’s why Brenham means so much to me,” Hills said. “I will never forget the hospitality and the love the people in that town showed me on that special night.”